Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Well, it’s not so much a “show” as a riveting power point presentation about backyard composting. There will be no acrobatics and minimal unicycle juggling involved but there will be lots of great information and free goodies!

In just one hour you’ll learn how to:

• Create the most effective backyard compost bin

• Produce a valuable soil amendment for your garden

• Significantly reduce waste from your kitchen and yard

We’ll cover the basics of balancing a compost bin and talk about troubleshooting issues. Bring your toughest (and easiest) composting questions, there will be time for those too!

At the end of the hour you will receive a free kitchen collector, a “Simple Guide to Composting in Your Backyard", an “I heart Compost” bumper magnet, and a $20 coupon redeemable at partnering stores toward the purchase of a compost bin (Hamilton County, Ohio residents only).

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

It never fails. Every time I empty food scraps into my compost bin I look in my trusty kitchen collector and…ugh….there they are, the hanger oners. A few wet carrot peels or a lone tomato slice sticking to the bottom of the bucket, loitering where they are not wanted. No amount of pounding on the bottom or shaking the bucket will convince the lagging food scraps to join their friends.

But now I’ve learned a cleaner way to collect kitchen scraps that doesn’t involve expensive plastic liners. Just simple old newspaper. You can think of it as a craft project for your compost bin. Compost origami, if you will.

Our dear neighbors to the north came up with this clever idea (Canadians, not Daytonians). You simply take three pieces of newspaper and after a few quick folds, the newspaper becomes a liner for the kitchen collector. The newspaper absorbs liquid from your food waste and keeps the carrot peels from sticking to the bottom.

When its full you just chuck the whole package (newspaper and all) into the compost bin. Your compost bin will benefit from the balance of carbon and the newspaper acts as a cover for the food scraps to deter pests and eliminate odors.

Pretty clever…eh?

You may even be able to add this to your kids’ chore list. I’ll bet they’ll complain much less while making origami than they would scrubbing out a compost bucket.

Here is the video Ottawa put together with a cute 6-year-old demonstrating the easy origami folds. If you want to print out instructions, you can find them here.

Have you ever tried to line your kitchen collector bucket? If so, how did it work?